Chapter 2

Her eyes were nothing but terrified, her small hand gripping his thick meaty wrist in anxiety as her chest rises and falls rapidly with breath.

“Please,” she mouths, eyebrows furrowed as a single tear rolls down her cheek.

With a singular nod, I lunge at the three. Their strikes clumsy and half witted, unprepared.

I was done holding back.

With both sets of claws exposed and canines flush against the flesh of my lips I strike and slash with all of the power that consumes me.

I channel something that they had always channeled wrong: anger.

Their snarls and gasps of pain don’t miss my ears as I send them tumbling to the forest floor, one right after the other. I could feel their blood splashing onto my face in warm splatters and relished in the feeling.

Vanquishing the wrong had always been a particular joy of mine.

Breathing deeply and heavily, I stop, straightening my knees and looking down at the gore that surrounds me. I was standing in them, in a puddle of their blood and flesh. My claws dripping with their dignity, with their lives, with their souls.

They’d been slaughtered.

Slowly, I turn to the male that held the young girl.

One thing about rogues, they hardly cared. They worked in bands with a technical leader because being truly alone was impossible for a social creature like a wolf. Sure, they grew fond of their comrades, but that didn’t mean that they cared. Rogues weren’t soulless, but being exiled from a pack does something to the psyche and the soul, it darkens it, makes it rot.

“Release her,” I said, taking a step in his direction.

He snarls, eyes flashing as he tightens his grip just slightly, a quick inhale of breath by the young girl following.

“You release her, and run, or you join them. Pick your destiny.”

He snarls once more. Eyes glancing between myself and the piles of flesh that lay behind me.

“One, two…” and he was gone, snarling as he left, quick feet thudding as he went.

Gasping, the girl falls to her knees, holding her neck where his claws had left imprints.

I watch her for a short moment, letting her gather herself.

“Where’s your pack?” I ask.

She looks up to me, eyes a wide, scared pool of emerald.

“Please,” she said.

“I’m not going to hurt you. What pack?” I was never known for being very gentle. I wasn’t good at it. I guess that was a bit of my dad in me. He wasn’t good at being gentle either, until it came to my mother.

“You won’t hurt me?” she asked, standing with shaky legs.

“No. Now answer me.”

“The Enforcers.”

Damnit. Of course. She couldn’t have been from a small settled pack, a sector of one of the big five, she had to be in the biggest and most tightly run of the five. For the love of fuck.

“Great,” I said before I turned to the west and listened. I could hear some gentle heartbeats far off, the further I listened the more faint they got. In total, there were probably around 100 guards around the perimeter of The Enforcers.

“How the hell did you get all the way out here?” I ask.

She looks up at me with a nervous smile.

“I can’t tell. I’m not supposed to be out here. Common wolves aren’t even allowed to be within a two mile radius of the boarder. Alpha’s orders.”

“Great,” I groan, rolling my eyes as I take a step forward, her hand reaching out and clasping my wrist, forcing me to stop.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m taking you back to your pack. It’s dangerous out here.”

“But they’ll detain you, and punish you.”

I roll my eyes again and look around us.

“In about five minutes the wind coming from the east will blow the scent of these dead rogues right into the noses of the boarder control of your pack. They’ll alert your Alpha and soldiers will be sent to this location to gather evidence. While it’s not illegal to kill a rogue, on this large of a scale there will be questions. I run back east, they find a way to track me and question me. I stay here and they find me, I’m detailed and punished anyways. I take you back to your pack, I’m detained and punished. I knew what I was risking.”

“But my Alpha isn’t know for kindness.”

“Oh, I’m aware,” I scoff, heading west again before I stop at a small creek, rinsing my hands and arms in the water before splashing some on my face, rinsing all the blood away.

“So you’d risk getting caught just to take me back and know that I’m safe.”

“I just killed five rogues.”

“Yes?”

“Use your brain.”

“Hey!”

“What?” I snarl, turning back to her quickly, watching her eyes widen in surprise.

“You don’t know me,” she whispers, dropping her eyes.

“I don’t have to. You’re a kid, freshly shifted. You shouldn’t be wandering alone, much less out here,” I turn back, continuing to walk.

“How do you know I’m freshly shifted?”

“I can smell it.”

“What?”

“Am I right?”

“Well, yeah. I shifted a week ago.”

“Okay, then there you go.”

“What do you mean ‘smell it’.”

“What is this, twenty questions? Shut up before you alert the damn boarder patrol.”

“They aren’t gonna hear us. We’re too far out.”

“You’re majorly underestimating their abilities. Boarder patrol are more than just soldiers. They’ve been trained to a-tune their senses, specifically senses of hearing and smell to foreign scents and noises.”

“How do you know that?”

“Will you shut up.”

“I asked you a question.”

“You’re going to get us caught before I even get you to the boarder.”

“That won’t happen.”

I scoff, shaking my head.

“It won’t. I know it won’t. They can’t hear us much less smell us from all the way out…” she trails off, the sounds of heavy paws headed quickly in our direction.

“Damnit.”